Can Appeals For Peace Promote Tolerance and Mitigate Support for Extremism? Evidence from an Experiment with Adolescents in Burkina Faso

Grossman, Allison N.; Nomikos, William George; Siddiqui, Niloufer

doi:10.31219/osf.io/49na5

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…However, little previous research examines whether such messages are effective in changing attitudes and norms around the challenges in ending violent conflict. Indeed, one recent study in Burkina Faso finds that messages from religious leaders are not effective in changing attitudes on violent extremism ( 34 ), raising the question of whether this type of intervention will be effective when it comes to reintegration. Yet, encouragingly, recent research in civil war contexts in West Africa suggests that authorities, such as local leaders and international peacekeepers, can play important roles in preventing or resolving conflict ( 35 – 37 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Trusted authorities can change minds and shift norms during conflict

Blair

Littman

Nugent

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The reintegration of former members of violent extremist groups is a pressing policy challenge. Governments and policymakers often have to change minds among reticent populations and shift perceived community norms in order to pave the way for peaceful reintegration. How can they do so on a mass scale? Previous research shows that messages from trusted authorities can be effective in creating attitude change and shifting perceptions of social norms. In this study, we test whether messages from religious leaders—trusted authorities in many communities worldwide—can change minds and shift norms around an issue related to conflict resolution: the reintegration of former members of violent extremist groups. Our study takes place in Maiduguri, Nigeria, the birthplace of the violent extremist group Boko Haram. Participants were randomly assigned to listen to either a placebo radio message or to a treatment message from a religious leader emphasizing the importance of forgiveness, announcing the leader’s forgiveness of repentant fighters, and calling on followers to forgive. Participants were then asked about their attitudes, intended behaviors, and perceptions of social norms surrounding the reintegration of an ex–Boko Haram fighter. The religious leader message significantly increased support for reintegration and willingness to interact with the ex-fighter in social, political, and economic life (8 to 10 percentage points). It also shifted people’s beliefs that others in their community were more supportive of reintegration (6 to 10 percentage points). Our findings suggest that trusted authorities such as religious leaders can be effective messengers for promoting peace.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Trusted authorities can change minds and shift norms during conflict

Blair

Littman

Nugent

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…These asymmetries are likely to be especially large with relation to international military interventions, civil wars, peacekeeping operations, and development programs (Nomikos , 2022Grossman, Nomikos and Siddiqui 2021) The gap gives leaders a relatively freehand in the international realm. In these accounts, elites feed information to traditional media sources, who prefer to limit reporting on foreign policy for fear of alienating reliable sources (Baum and Potter 2008).…”

Section: Past Research About Foreign Policy and Public Opinionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Foreign Policy Crisis Shapes Public Opinion on Social Media: An Investigation of Twitter Discourse during the U.S.Withdrawal from Afghanistan

Nomikos¹

2022

Preprint

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Political scientists have long debated whether and how foreign policy shapes public opinion in democracies. Although some scholars suggest that domestic politics does not affect how leaders in democracies conduct foreign policy at all, an emerging consensus has in recent years documented the fundamental interplay between international politics and public opinion. According to this line of thinking, domestic audiences use foreign policy, leaders' decision-making during international crises, and the consequences of those decisions to evaluate leaders. These evaluations, in turn, constrain the behavior of leaders on the international stage since they wish to remain in office. While it is clear that foreign policy impacts the public opinion toward the political leadership making those decisions, the mechanisms specifying how remain subject to debate. Moreover, the growing importance of social media in electoral politics remains largely unaccounted for in this literature. This article begins to fill this gap by providing a theory and evidence from social media data that explains how social media conditions the effect of foreign policy on public opinion. To test our argument, we examine social media responses toward the U.S. decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in August 2021. The withdrawal is a salient policy event with important implications for studying the role of international politics in shaping public opinion over time. We use a dataset of 7 million tweets to measure the public opinion toward the withdrawal. Instead of relying on a specified group of users, we collect all tweets in the United States sent between August and September of 2021 that mention a list of keywords related to the Afghan withdrawal. This approach allows us to collect the most comprehensive corpus of tweets related to the Afghan withdrawal.

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